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Summary: Poignant perspectives
Review:
An enlightening experience awaits the reader of Bauman's Beautiful Girls, tales both playful and tender. That they are so easy to read belies the careful structure and precise attention to detail, each vignette an imaginative take on the vulnerability of the human psyche.
The title story, "Beautiful Girls", exposes beauty for its facile usefulness, a passport to places where less fortunate girls never go, but a road fraught pitfalls nonetheless, the too easy physical attractions, the cruelty of entitlement and the impulse to discard emotions as dispensable. "Wash, Rinse, Spin" is a deeply compassionate story of the last wrenching days between a daughter and her dying father, the hours thick with loss, regret and the reality of a world without him.
The author carefully arranges her scenes, story by story, from "Eden" to "Wildlife of America", where images come to life, the sights and smells of clutter, yearning, discontent and abandoned hopes, as her characters stumble through the confusion of daily challenges. Bauman paints reality in exquisite detail, quirky and individual, yet somehow as familiar as a childhood memory. Her accessible style of writing taps into some well-hidden secret place, where mothers are unpredictable and fragile and fathers are embarrassing, where things go bump in the night and the child carefully monitors the behavior of the parents, caretaker of undisciplined adults.
Bauman's protagonists vacillate between loneliness and being alone, on the verge of that terrible isolation, but never falling into self-pity. Rather, each explores this territory, searching for a place of comfort, the accommodation of lonely vs. alone that so defines these characters and the author's fearless exploration of such feelings. Luan Gaines/2004.
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Summary: A short-story collection that speaks volumes...
Review: Anyone who had gone through growing pains can relate to the stories in Beautiful Girls. This wonderful collection is mostly centered on young girls and their struggles with growing up and their self-image. Of course, the stories are far more dimensional than that -- they center on the sort of problems that kids and teens go through while growing up, things that seemed too important during that period in our lives. And the interesting part is that there are stories of adult women in this book who go through things not unlike the younger generation. My favorite stories are "Stew," "The Middle of the Night," "Safeway," and "Wash, Rinse, Spin." I marvel at Beth Ann Beauman's keen storytelling and wonderful prose. Beautiful Girls is one great short-story collection and I look forward to reading more by this author in the future.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful Girls
Review: I loved Beautiful Girls for its sensitive observations about being a woman today punctuated by an incisive humor. The women and girls in these stories are full of hopes and dreams, aching for something beyond their current lot. A young lawyer struggles with such mundane activities as laundry while her father slowly dies; a high school student faces the realization that she has a "lousy personality;" a woman vacationing on a tropical cruise wonders if she is suffering from "soul leakage." Ms. Bauman vividly imagines their inner lives, their pains, their longings, all with a wit akin to Lorrie Moore's, a sense of humor that simultaneously alleviates and heightens the intensity of emotions.This is an amazing debut. I highly recommend it and eagerly look forward to Ms. Bauman's next book.
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Summary: Wow!
Review: I loved Beautiful Girls! I loved these wonderfully rich stories that are brimming with life. With enormous charm and humor, Bauman writes about growing up, being beautiful, or un-beautiful, and the search for love and connection. The writing is exquisite and the characters are amazingly alive. These stories reminded me a little bit of Lorrie Moore's work. This is a book I want all my friends to read. A terrific debut!
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Summary: Stories that feel like memories
Review: I read these short stories one story at a time, often with several days in between. I kept thinking that each one was better than the one before. Each one had an essence that evoked poignant memories of every stage of life, even though the scenes and the characters ranged widely. Each also caused at least one breath-catching realization about life that had never occurred to me before, or had a lovely twist that brought forth a sigh, or a knowing shake of my head at an "out-of-the-mouths-of babes" moment or one for how trustingly childlike we can be at any age.
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Summary: I wanted to like it . . .
Review: I wanted to read these short stories and fall in love with each and every one. I just felt like something was lacking. I find it to be mundane and near poorly written. I hate the simplistic descriptions, there's no artistic quality to it, which makes it seem like any one could've written this piece of nothing. The stories are interesting but they lack something that cannot be fingered. I'm sorry I wasted my money.
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Summary: wonderful!
Review: I was told to read Beautiful Girls from a respected friend. I hesitated because I do not like to read short stories. Nevertheless because the stories were short I began to read them.
To my surprise, I found each story to read like a novella.
The author is very talented. Each story comes full circle and most remarkably, each story has meaning and heartfelt warmth. Surprise! I remommend the book highly. It is a very good read and the author is very talented . I am looking forward to her next series of short,long or first complete novel.. I recommend Beautiful Girls highly!!
Rating:
Summary: wonderful!
Review: These are beautiful stories told with great humor and heartfelt emotions. I fell in love with these characters and Beth Bauman's pitch-perfect writing. Can't wait for her next work!
Rating: 
Summary: A Wonder-filled mediocrity
Review: This collection of stories is unastoundingly dull. The characters are shallow and underdeveloped, and the writing style is that of an MFA writing course. No music, no flair, just uninspiringly bland. Is this the worst collection of short stories I've ever read? No. It's better than "Lucky Girls" by that Nell F. girl & more on par with Jumpa's "Interpreter"- but saying that isn't that much of a compliment because Jumpa's stories are equally as dull in a different way. The first story in this collection deals with an estranged father/daughter relationship where nothing much happens at all. WOW. Then there is a story about a girl who goes skinny-dipping with a guy and their pubic hair floats in the water where the author then says "what sea creatures we've become". Sorry- not impressed. Although the fact that I can remember that says something (even if very little). Overall this book is non-offending, non-inspiring, and dull. I recommend Emily Carter's "Glory Goes and Gets some" for a fresh approach to language and characters.
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Summary: Beautiful Girls by Beth Ann Bauman
Review: What a brilliant, glorious debut for a terrific story teller. Each of the stories is absorbing, compelling, and written with exquisite pathos and humor. It is easy to dwell in the lives of her character's, feel their joy, pain, and disappointments,and easily move on with the incredibly smooth flow of this narrative. Here is one book that can't be put down, and is deeply satisfying throughout. Read this engrossing book effortlessly, and with great pleasure. Kudos to Ms Bauman. I for one, am anxiously looking forward to her second writing.
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